Sailor Moon Part 1 and 2

Around the mid 2000s Anime started getting really big. Emos liked it and nerds liked it, all of a sudden it was everywhere. I didn’t get this new phenomenon. Why now? I wasn’t ready to spend my money on anything but everything coming out on DVD from various companies and it just seemed like such a sprawling genre to get into it that I just didn’t. Turns out I’m an Anime geek from way back. From about ages 5-10 I was obssessed with Sailor Moon, Speed Racer and my favourite by far, Samurai Pizza Cats. I had no idea these shows were considered “Anime”, they were just cartoons to me. To get to the point, I still haven’t really ventured into the world of Anime, I did enjoy the Death Note Anime series but I’ve been pretty slack on checking out any others, so if you can recommend any good places to start leave me a comment below.

Sailor Moon is an adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi’s Manga series of the same name. For those of you who are all about Sailor Moon you might want to skip the next few paragraphs and read about the release.

Usagi Tsukino is a lazy sleeping-loving 14-year-old school girl who comes across a talking cat named Luna. Usagi saved Luna from some kids who were messing with her and in return Luna gives Usagi a brooch that enables her to turn into Sailor Moon . Together Sailor and Luna have to find more Sailor Guardians and Moon Princesses to help defeat Queen Beryl who wants to control earth.

It’s a show that kinda has a bit of something for everyone. Lots of action, romance, humour, catchy music and valuable lessons. Sailor is a good role model for young girls and doesn’t fall victim that often which is great, although she’s not an annoying “Kick Ass” type of girl character either. I’d say for many kids Sailor Moon would have exposed them to the idea that girls could save the day. I mean sure we had Rainbow Brite but she only had Murky and Lurky to contend with and not strange magical creatures, plus these girls had sparkly nails and cool outfits. Sailor also kept it real, she cries all the time and has crushes on boys and has a fondness for deserts, so she straddles the world of femininity/kick-ass-ness with a perfect balance.

It’s definitely a show for the 10+ age bracket. There’s a lot of grotesque looking villains and monsters that might be frightening to young ones. My three year old wanted to watch the show but one episode in asked me to turn it off as it was a “bit scary”. I am certain that as a child I would have watched the Americanised version as I don’t recall it being scary or weird at all.

Hardcore fans will be wanting to know if it’s the kid-friendly Americanised version of uncut. According to this press release from Madman: “The uncut and uncensored release of SAILOR MOON will feature its original un-cropped 4:3 aspect ratio, along with all original Japanese character names, story elements and relationships, as well as an all-new uncut English dub with a new voice cast.” So there is a some uncut violence and suggestive dialogue, but for fans who never got to see the series how it was intended to be seen then you’ll really enjoy this release.

You can buy the regular release of episodes 1-24, or the Limited Edition release of episodes 1-24. The Limited Edition set comes in a nice box with a booklet and a slip case for where you would put Season 1 Part 2 (episodes 25-46). The only issue is once you put part two in the box there’s no space for the booklet and it won’t fit inside the DVD case. Season 2 is available to pre-order now and again comes in the regular release episodes 47-68 and the Limited Edition. No sign of any Blu-Ray releases yet although a complete Sailor Moon on Blu-Ray would be awesome.

This release lacks a few less extras than US releases and the Blu-Ray versions but not by much. Here’s hoping us NZ/Australian fans can pick this up on Blu-Ray some day down the line too.

Both sets are four discs each and have a run time of 600 minutes each. Full Frame 4:3, Region 4 with English and Japanese 2.0. Scroll to bottom of page for images of the DVDs.